Part 58 (1/2)
Their whispers made their voices sound much alike.” That is why we still fight.”
The prince laughed harshly.” This war will only be over when the pale dogs and the shana-ret'zeri cease to hunt us, and that they will never do. Because they are still beasts, they cannot live peacefully, nor will they ever let us live peacefully.” ' ”Spoken like a soldier.”
”Do not mock me, brother. You know they are our enemies.”
”I know there will never be peace as long as our leaders persist in thinking they are beasts.”
”Tell me you did not cry with joy when news came to the blood-knife lord that the witch who calls herself Li'at'dano was captured!”
The name made Alain slip in surprise. Pebbles fell in a spray, skittering onto the ground at his feet.
But the unseen man was already talking; neither seemed to have heard.” She is not even the most dangerous of those who oppose us. But at least once she is sacrificed, her power is lost to our enemies.”
”We don't need magic to defeat them.”
”If you think so, then you are a fool.”
”You have been listening to the mumbling of the sky-counters again. We have spears and swords enough.”
”Why will you never listen, elder brother? Spears and swords will never be enough.”
”What great magic are the pale dogs hiding? How will they rise up and defeat the Feathered Cloak and her sorcerers? What are they waiting for? The witch mare will be taken to the temple of He-Who-Burns, and there she will walk the spheres. So we will be rid of her. The rest will die or surrender or flee.”
How could it be that this man, who was alive and not a shade, knew of Liath? Wasn't she already walking the spheres? Or was it Liath he was in fact speaking of? She was no ”witch mare.”
”That is what I am afraid of,” said the other man as he stepped at last into Alain's line of sight. He carried the pale light, a simple oil lamp flaring and flickering as the night wind teased it, held away from his body to illuminate the face of the prince.” That as we march our armies out to the frontier and leave our cities unprotected, the pale dogs are hiding and h.o.a.rding their magic. That is how they will strike us. That is why the sky-counters have sent out raiding parties to the four winds.”
”To be eaten by guivres, clawed by sphinxes, and smothered in sandstorms!”
The man carrying the lamp s.h.i.+fted, and all at once the light shone on his face.
Which was a twin to that of the soldier prince. Here was the Seeker again, dressed in simple garb and adorned by feathers.
Maybe Alain made an involuntary squeak of shock. Maybe his foot slipped. The next thing he knew, the soldier had spun around and lowered his lance, balanced to slide right into Alain's belly.
”Who's there?” he demanded, squinting into the darkness.
”Do not act rashly.” The Seeker laid a restraining hand on his brother's arm.” I have smelled this one before.” He lifted the lamp to shoulder height. He had a young face, handsome and proud, but not cruel. Feathers bobbed in his hair as he lifted his chin.” Come forward. You are trapped.”
With his staff held in his right hand, Alain stepped forward cautiously into the light.
”I am only one man,” he said quietly, ”and I do not understand this long war. Wouldn't you live more easily if you could make peace?”
The soldier hissed through his teeth. He held his lance steady, but did not lunge.
”Do you not mean to stab the pale dog through at once and have done with its barking?” asked the Seeker with some amus.e.m.e.nt. Seeing them together, side by side, Alain could now detect certain differences of stance and expression-the soldier tense and slightly thinner, as grim as death, and the Seeker with a gleam like mischief in his expression and a sardonic lift to his mouth. Otherwise they looked exactly alike except for their clothing.
”What are you doing here?” demanded the soldier as the point of his lance hovered an arm's length from Alain's abdomen.” How did you come to our walls without being seen by the sentries and patrols?”
Alain touched his own face, but the taste and feel of the oil Agalleos had given him to rub into his skin was long since wicked away by wind and night. Before he could answer, he heard the dis tant sound of barking, all at once, as though the hounds had been surprised out of sleep.
Hard on that sound, the darkness came alive as the blat of conch horns rose out of the east. A rumble like distant thunder shook the earth. Torches flared at the edge of the woods. Alarms rose from the fort's walls, and men shouted out warnings as, along the entire northern sweep of forest, lights bloomed and, in the hands of shadowy figures, swept in toward the fort.
”Now what say you, brother?” cried the soldier.” Do they walk forward offering the gold feather of peace? Do they send emissaries with tribute? No, they strike like wolves in the night.” He struck. Alain dodged aside as the prince caught himself and jerked back for another try.
”Hold your point!” cried the Seeker.” These are the Horse folk come for their witch. This one, he does not belong here.”
”Then we shall be rid of him.” The soldier struck again. Alain knocked the point aside with his staff and leaped back toward the wall as the prince pressed his attack.” Brother! Behind you!”
Two ma.s.sive creatures scrambled up the lower slope. One, lithe and swift, closed faster than the other. The lamp held in the Seeker's hand flared as the leading centaur burst into the herb garden, trampling waist-high lavender. The soldier spun to meet her. Ai, G.o.d. Like the Holy One, she was beautiful. Long black hair blown back revealed full b.r.e.a.s.t.s, each glimmering in the pale light like a perfect moon. As with her hind legs she jumped, she raised high in her hands a club bristling with spikes. She bore down on the prince. He held his ground and thrust, catching her between those b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Her momentum pushed the spear point out her back as he scrambled backward to the low wall ringing the ledge. The club came down too late across the haft of the spear, splintering it as her body collided with her killer. They both tumbled over the retaining wall, vanis.h.i.+ng from sight.
The second centaur let loose a piercing scream as she arrived too late to do anything but avenge her companion. She charged the Seeker, who danced this way and that, at some advantage because he could dodge more swiftly than she could turn her bulky body, until at last his enemy cornered him near Alain. She hadn't the lithe beauty of her dead companion; broad shouldered and barrelyo chested, b.r.e.a.s.t.s almost lost in her muscular arms and chest, she reared up, fore-hooves striking and club lifted for the killing blow. Alain thrust his staff up, catching the club at the apex of its arc. She twisted, her fore-hooves knocking Alain hard to the ground, and reared again, ready to strike him, but he pushed his staff between her rear legs and with the weight of his body twisted it around. The wood did not break. She tumbled back onto her flank. He leaped to force his weight down onto her heaving shoulder, pressing his staff against her neck.
”We must save the Holy One!” he cried.
”I am Sos'ka.” She twisted her head around to catch sight of the Seeker, standing stock-still against the wall.” Bar'ha and I were sent up here to find the one called Alain. Why do you fight me, if you are that one?”
The Seeker had pulled his knife, but he did not advance. Amazingly, he hadn't lost his grip on the oil lamp. Alain eased up on his staff and rose. Sos'ka regained her club and righted herself, getting her four legs under her and with some difficulty staggering upright. When she saw the Seeker, hatred swept clean her expression. She lifted the club and danced toward him.
Alain stepped between them.” No. No more killing.” She shook her head, making a noise more like a whinny than a word. Where her black hair had been bound back, her ears, pointed and tufted, showed through. She examined Alain briefly with eyes slit vertically, their color impossible to make out in the night.” Come,” she said at last, with only a final, swift glance at the Seeker, who had not moved.
Maybe this young prince, so uncannily like the other, would not die today. Maybe his brother had or was soon to become a shade, caught forever in the shadows of the world.
''Quickly.” Sos'ka grabbed Alain with a burly arm and helped him mount awkwardly onto her back. He righted himself, clamping his staff under his arm as she turned, cleared the wall easily, then half slipped, half cantered down the slope. He had to grasp her mane, which ran all the way down her spine to her withers, to stay on her back. Although she was as surefooted as a goat, the ride was rough.
He glanced back to see the Seeker bending to pick an object from the ground. It gleamed, sweetly gold, almost as bright in the night as the oil lamp. As Alain slapped his hand over his tunic, feeling for the phoenix feather, he saw the soldier prince push himself away from the body of the dead centaur just below the ledge. At once, the Seeker jumped forward to help his brother to safety.” Beware!” Sos'ka cried, and he held on for dear life as she jumped a ditch and landed hard on the other side.
He felt at his chest again, but the phoenix feather was gone, lost in the struggle. It was too late to go back now. The battle rose out of the darkness before them.
Alain held tight to Sos'ka as she cleared the worst of the rugged ground and galloped wide around the fighting that had erupted in the encampment. Pavilions burned, fire illuminating the scene with a sickly glow. Cursed Ones fell, and centaurs stumbled, cut down. Screams cut the air. The horrible scent of charred flesh stung at his nose and made him choke. Torches ringed the fort. Flaming arrows made arcs of light across the night sky.
”To the southeast road,” he yelled, almost coughing out the words. She cried out, a whinnying call, and about four dozen centaurs split away from the attack to follow her, half of them carrying torches. They pounded onto the road, hooves striking sparks on stone, and broke into a gallop. The stonework, the fruit of the Cursed Ones' fabled engineering, made the road so even and smooth that they could move swiftly and without much fear of stumbling. Even so, he could tell from their fury that no obstacle, even night, would come between them and the one they sought, not now that they were so close.
The high priest's party had made good time and, truly, looked to be making better time still, since the men had all broken into a steady soldier's trot. Their rear guard shouted the warning, and half the troop-perhaps three dozen-stopped to meet the threat. They fanned out into a line, spears lowered, as the rest of the troop hastened on. The blood-knife banner bobbed away into the night shadows, a pair of torches casting light onto the sigil. The two wagons, with the Holy One tied between them, lumbered on.
The centaur charge hit the line of spearmen like a storm surge, flattening them. Four centaurs fell, but the rest poured past even as those soldiers who weren't writhing on the ground cast their spears after them. One centaur lurched forward, wounded in the thigh, io and collapsed. Alain had to look away as a group of soldiers leaped on her, stabbing.
Seeing that their pursuit hadn't slowed, the rest of the troop pulled up to face the centaurs. Sos'ka's coat was slick with sweat. Froth bubbled at her mouth as she shrieked in battle frenzy and charged for this new line. Alain tightened his knees along her withers, desperate to stay on, and couched his staff like a lance. The Cursed Ones formed their final line, spears ready, swords poised.
As they broke over the line Alain slapped a spear's thrust away and struck the soldier across the face, knocking him hard to the ground. Sos'ka's club swiped close by Alain's head as she swung it down onto the helmet of a Cursed One. The force of the blow shuddered through her body as her club crushed the man's skull. The dying soldier's sword drew a shallow cut across her shoulder and down Alain's thigh as the man fell beneath her hooves.
They broke past the line and, with some effort, she slowed, danced sideways, and turned to meet a new press of soldiers. Her club struck wildly in grand arcs from side to side. Half the time Alain had to duck her swings, but he thrust his staff toward one face, then another, hitting them hard to keep them off-balance. She reared as a soldier cut at her legs, and Alain slid from her back. Amazingly he landed on his feet and had enough balance to jump forward, catching the soldier's sword against his staff. With the sword still embedded in the wood, he shoved the flat of the blade into the face of its owner, stunning the soldier. Wrenching his staff free, he struck a blow that sent the man to the ground.
The wagons had lurched to a stop as the drivers fought to control their panicking horses. The high priest, with his rainbow headdress thrown carelessly to one side, leaped out of the back of the lead wagon and, ugly obsidian knife in hand, ran forward to Li'at'-dano. The.centaur shaman was still trussed, trapped and helpless as she threw back her head and neighed. The Cursed Ones fought furiously to keep her rescuers away. All they had to do was hold long enough for the priest to murder her. No matter how hard Alain pushed, for every one he knocked aside, another leaped forward to take that one's place.
The priest cried out.” May He-Who-Burns take this offering!” He struck.
The centaurs cried out in fear and helpless fury.
Light ripped down from the heavens. The burning flash was followed by an explosive clap that threw every person to the ground.